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I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 8 

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| UNITED STATES OF JWIEIlTCA-. | 



ADDRESS 



GEORGE THOMPSON. (M.l\) 



M 

OF ENQLAND, 



LEGISLATURE AND CITIZENS 



V JK n M ONT 



DELIVERED IN REPRESENTATIVES' HALL, OCTOBER 22, 1864. 



v 






MONTPELIER : 
PUBLISHED BY P. DBMING. 

PRINTED AT TUB FREEMAN STEAM PRINTING ESTABU81IM8NT. 
1804. 




ADDRESS. 



Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Senate and Home of Representatives, 
Citizens of Montpelier, Ladies and Gentlemen :— 

As a man with ardent aspirations for the triumph everywhere of 
the sacred cause of human freedom 1 -appear before you. I come belore 
vou as a careful student of your nation's history, as one who has, trom 
his youth up, admired the principles and favored the institutions ana 
cordially approved the form of government under which you have lor so 
many years lived. As a dweller in your country on a previous occasion, 
it has been my privilege to study you as you are, not to learn you trom 
books alone or from report, but to live amongst you and to be permitted to 
observe the manner of life of the people of this country. 1 or lour years 
I have been the very humble but earnest and disinterested vindicator or 
the character and institutions of America, in the presence of those oi my 
countrymen at home, who have, unhappily for themselves, and to ttieir 
discredit, withheld from this country that sympathy to which she was so 
justly entitled in the hour of her bitter anguish, and in her mighty strug- 
gle with the enemies of human liberty. (Applause.) 1 will yield to no 
man in this country for ardent interest and deep solicitude in respect to 
the issues of that mighty conflict in which the two great parties in this 
country are now engaged. Having had such opportunities to know you 
and your institutions, and with such views, I heartily and cordially and 
esteeming it at the same time a very high honor, accepted the mutation 
forwarded to me in the terms of the joint resolution of the House ol 
Assembly of Vermont. I have been permitted recently to survey this 
beautiful and romantic State, and as I have wandered through it, trave led 
along its valleys and gazed upon its verdant hills, I have been reminded 
of a portion of my own native country in which I was permitted to 
spend seven happy years, and in which I am an acknowledged citizen DJ 
a special vote of the city of Edinburgh. It reminded me of Scotland ,— 

Land of the brown heath r>nd shapey wood, 
Land of the mountain and the Hood, 

home of a people brave and true, and of a noble faith, to which they have 
given attestation by glorious deeds, and which they have sealed With 
their blood. Although I had never seen Vermont, I knew something of 
vour history, something of what you had done for your common eountrj 
in days long past, when you deemed it but just to yourselves and youi 



children to dissolve your connection with the parent land. I knew some- 
thing of what you had done as a people and a State, while in conflict 
with agister State, and how jealously you had guarded your own rights 
and privileges and hbe. -ties. I had read of that man whose statue I 
passed a few minutes ago, in ascending the steps of this Capitol, and 
how he summoned a neighboring fort to surrender in the name o'f the 
great Jehovah and Continental Congress. (Applause.) I had read of 
that Vermont Judge who when the slave power would have claimed 
property in man, and seized a human being as a chattel, Avould be satis- 
lied with nothing less than a bill of sale from the Almighty. (Applause.) 

I had looked into your natural history ; 1 had found that you, like other 
states in the Union, were not deficient in snakes, that you had black snakes 
white snakes, green snakes, ring snakes, striped snakes, ribbed snakes' 
and rattle snakes ; but I was rejoiced to find in all my researches into 
the natural history of the Green Mountain State, that you had no such a 
reptile among you as a copperhead. (Applause.) I discovered, however, 
to my deep regret, that you had something which is perhaps equivalent 
to that, — a Right Rev. Bishop who has defended slavery from the Bible. 
(Applause.) 

I have read the message of your esteemed Governor, and I know there- 
fore how affairs stand in the main between you and the nation. I have 
looked a little into your finances, and with interest, but with much more 
interest into the course you have pursued with regard to furnishing gal- 
lant men of this State to fight the battles of Union and liberty at the 
South. I find that you have not only furnished your quota, but have 
always exceeded that quota, and that even now after so many calls, Ver- 
mont has not only complied with the recent requisition for additional 
troops, but has now a thousand men over and above all requisitions cred- 
ited to her — a thousand men, each of whom has volunteered to represent 
his State in the conflict with the demon of slavery at the South. 

All this I know of you, and have beside learned by experience something 
of the hospitality of Vermont. It is no easy matter to come here, because 
a man I find has to eat his way through the State (laughter), and it has 
been an appalling thing to me, and I am at this moment suffering, and 
suffering severely, — shame upon my own indiscretion, but thanks to the 
hospitality of my host and hostess of a neighboring town — because I 
partook most unwisely of two large servings of a most delicious New 
England pudding at dinner, the component parts of which, and the name 
of which I am not able to inform you. (Laughter.) 

Sirs, I remember that I am in America. When the genius of Colum- 
bus first pierced the night of ages, and opened up to one world sources of 
wealth and power and grandeur and glory, and to another woes which 
imagination cannot depict, there were upon the islands at the entrance of 
the Gulf of Mexico, scattered throughout the Caribbean Sea, a gentle and 
inoffensive race that came trooping down to the beach, to receive Colum- 
bus and his followers, wherever his vessels appeared, as visitors from 
Heaven. That entire race was, in process of time, and in the progress 
of events, reduced to slavery. Under the burden of slavery the whole 
race perished. The entire race 

" Sank beneath the oppressor'^ rod, 

And left a blank amidst the works of God." 

"When the Caribbean Indians had been destroyed, slavery must still have 
its victims. Recourse was had to Africa, and for four centuries and more 
Africa has been spoiled of her children by an infernal conspiracy 
among the nations of Christendom. In this diabolical traffic my own 



country has taken a large aud infamous share. For three centuries 
England Avas deeply engaged in the African slave-trade. She brought 
slaves to this country, and planted upon this soil that deadly Upas tree 
that so lately overshadowed your country, and threatened to spread pes- 
tilence, poison and death among the inhabitants of this fair land. see 
to it that in the mighty conflict in which you are engaged, you pull up 
that tree by the roots, that you be not satisfied until you have extracted 
the last root and fibre from your soil, so that youi land may evermore be 
free from the curse and scandal of slavery. All Christendom owes a vast 
debt to Africa. You have your Africa here at home, and you have a 
great debt to cancel. The sooner and the more completely you cancel it, 
the better it will be for you. If you are wise you will do this quickly, 
anl you will do it faithfully. Yuu will pay this debt to the uttermost 
farthing, you will agree with your adversary quickly, you will leave your 
gift upon the altar and go and first be reconciled to your brother. For 
it is in vain to bring to God anything but truth and justice. Your ex- 
tended territory, your world-wide commerce, your universal education, 
your pure Protestant Christianity, all of these will fail you, if you op- 
press, and are hostile to your weaker brother. First bo reconciled to 
your brother, and then go and oiler your gift. All the nations of Europe 
owe a similar duty to Africa, — to Africa whose children, we arc told by 
learned men in this country, were created on purpose to be slaves. What 
a libel on God to suppose that having made of one blood all nations that 
on earth do dwell, he should say to his white children, I have created 
other children of swarthy complexion, with crisp hair, and different con- 
formation of features, and these I hand over to you, as your vassals and 
slaves and chattels forever. There are those who libel Africa by saying 
that no good thing can come out of that country ; but I can look back 
upon the pages of history to the t.me when Africa was first in the arts 
and sciences, and the seat of learning. When your ancestors and mine 
were worshipping Thor and Woden, and covering themselves with sheep 
skins and goat skins, Africa was sending her learned men to her Senate, 
and had her masters in the arts. Judge not Africa so long as you have 
the slave vessel upon her coast ; judge her not so long as you offer strong 
drink to her people, and thus aid in their degradation. Let Africa have 
peace, let her have the light of Christianity ; and then I believe for Africa, 
as for America, there will be a glorious future, and the same God that 
blesses you will also bless that now benighted country. Need 1 tell you 
or remind you, my respected friends, of what took place in this country 
two centuries and a half ago, how a band of.holy men and women, driven 
from Europe by religious intolerance and priestcraft, fled to these shores 
in a single vessel, the Mayflower, reached them in mid-winter, and landed 
upon Plymouth rock ? They were the Pilgrim Fathers. 

" What sonpht tliey thus afar >. 

Rriuht jewels of the mine ? 
The wealth of seas, the spoils of war ! 

They sought a faith's pure shrine— 

Freedom to worship God." 

Here they found it, here they planted churches, here they built up 
commonwealths upon the principles of equal liberty, truth and justice. 
Another vessel came to these shores about the same time. It was a 
Dutch vessel, and camcherc from the coast of Africa, [t ascended the 
James river ;. its cargo was human beasts of burden, it iu< a slave ship, 
it discharged its freight of captives upon the virgin soil of America. 
You are witnesses to-day to the conflict between the two principles es- 
tablished in this country at the time to which I have referred. All that 



6 

you are now witnessing, is but the fruit that proceeds from the germina- 
tion of the seed that was deposited on this soil, when that slave ship 
landed her cargo in Virginia, and the Pilgrim Fathers first trod upon the 
snows of Plymouth Rock. Can any man that has faith in God, iaith in 
justice and in truth, doubt the issue of this conflict? No! I did not 
doubt it thirty years ago, when tbe abolitionists pure and simple, true and 
faithful, might have been gathered around this table, with room enough 
and to spare, and can I doubt it now? Now 

' When, joy and thank* for erermnre, 

The dreary night is almost passed, 
Tlie slumbers nt'tho North are o'er, 

The giant stands erect at l»st. " , 

Can I doubt it now when merchants and mechanics, politicians, war- 
riors and statesmen, are alike combined together to bring about the set- 
tlement of this great question, and to purge this land irsm its ancient 
abominations? I cannot. The spirit of the Pilgrim Fathers still lives 
and is abroad. It is animating those who are on the battle-field and en- 
gaged in this contest, as well as those who remain here at home. And 
that spirit will triumph both here and on the fcld. Although you have 
an enemy in front of your armies, and an enemy behind you, yet neither 
the Southern chivalry, nor the copperheads of Chicago, will be able to 
avert the catastrophe which will befall slavery, producing its utter defeat, 
and the establishment of universal liberty. (Applause.) 

" Tie Pilprim spirit litis not fled, 

it walks in noon's broad light, 
And it watches the bed, of the gloiioug dead, 

With tlie holy stars of night. 

It watches the bed of the brave who have bled, 

And shall guard your ire bound shore. 
Till the waves of tlie bay where the Maj flower lay, 

Shall foam and freeze no more." 

I think there never was a time, when it was more necessary or so 
necessary as now, that you should have regard for the distinguishing 
features of your own Revolution of 1770, when you sundered the bonds 
that bound you to Great Britain. What is the true glory of America ? 
What constituted her glory in 1770? The people of the country were 
few and scattered, they had no line of iv.ilroad, extending as now, for 
two thousand miles from North to South and East to West. Ihey had 
no cities, towns, villages and hamlets dotting the surface of this continent 
almost from the Arctic legions to the Gulf of Panama. No ! they were 
a people few in number, scattered along the seaboard, feeble in resources ; 
and yet they attracted, not only the attention of Europe and the world 
at large, but won the admiration of mankind. Why was it that the 
nations stood expectant to catch the sound of the coming conflict? Why 
did the fire of patriotism which your fathers kindled, glow in so many 
hearts beside? 

'■ Why did expectant nations stand, 

To catch the coming torch in turn, 
And pass Irom ready hand to hand, 

'1 lie flame your fathers caused to burn ' " 

It was because you, a people small in number and weak in resources, 
had dared to declare, in the face of majestic England, that because she 
denied you the rights to which you were entitled and was deaf to your 
entreaties, you would be free. It was because you based your right 
to freedom upon these self-evident truths, — that all men are created 
free and equal, and with certain inalienable rights, among which are 
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It was because you as- 



sorted that if a government failed to secure to a people theBe rights, 
then such people had a right to change their form of government, and 
thereby secure these blessings to which every man holds a title. That ■ 
was your glory : and the people of America in the Northern States, 
going on in the spirit of that Declaration of Independence, seeing in the 
light of these sell-evident truths at one- the inconsistency and criminali- 
ty of slavery, abolished slavery. Massachusetts you know by a decision 
of her courts of law abolished it. Here in Vermont you enacted as a 
fundamental law of this State, that any person, whether born here or 
coming lroin abroad, should be free on reaching, for a man twenty-one 
years uf age, and for a woman eighteen. When those venerable fathers 
assembled in Liberty Hall in Pennsylvania, to consult in regard to framing 
a Constitution for the United States, you will temember that arrange- 
ments had been made by the Legislatures of the New England States, of 
New Jersy, Pennsylvania and i\ew York, for the gradual extinction of 
the system of slavery. When the framers of the Constitution then sat 
down to their work in 1787, the States north of Maryland desired to 
frame a Constitution in accordance with the character of free States, and 
only those South of Pennsylvania in accordance with the character of 
elave States. Can I doubt" that the spirit of Liberty was in that As- 
sembly? No. Do I not know of whom that assembly was composed ? 
I do. Can I doubt that there sat men who would have given the 
liberty which they had gained, to every human being? 1 cannot. But 
if the spirit of liberty was there, so aiso was present the foul spirit of 
slavery, that spirit which marred your Declaration of Independence. 
For among the reasons assigned as a justification of the revolt of the 
American colonies was this, that the King of England, in derogation of 
his character as a Christian, and in violation of his character as a sovereign, 
had foisted slavery and the slave trade upon the Colonics, and had not 
heeded their request to abolish it. The spirit of slavery expunged that 
record, and although it was in the handwriting of Thomas Jefferson and 
may still be seen in the archives of your country, yet it was expunged 
by the framers of the Constitution, because they knew that this allusion 
to the system would be dangerous to their projects. The same spirit of 
slavery was at work in the preparation of your Articles of Confederation, 
by which you were loosely held together as a congeries of common- 
wealths for about ten years. The spirit of slavery was there ; for in 
those articles certain rights and privileges and franchises are limited to 
free white men, ignoring and barring from the enjoyment of the rights of 
citizenship, all beside these. This spirit of slavery, in the convention held 
ki Liberty Hall, demanded as conditions precedent to a Union, the contin- 
uance of the slave-trade, the rendition of fugitive slaves, and representation 
for three-fifths of the slaves of the South, the power resulting from that 
representation, however, to be lodged in the hands and exercised by the will 
of the tyrants ruling those slaves. They (the slaveholders) stipulated as a 
condition, that in the event of these men ever waking up to a consciousness 
of their merit and rights, and making an attempt to burst their bonds asun- 
der, the whole power of the Federal Union should be employed to quell that 
insurrection, and bring them again under the heel of their haughty lords. 
This was one of the demands which the South made of those who had 
inherited the possessions and breathed something of the spirit of the 
Pilgrim Fathers. Let John Quiney Adams tell the rest. He Bays, that 
our" fathers, driven to the alternative of either sacrificing the Union or 
the principles of liberty, yielded in an evil hour to the demands by which 
they were opposed, smothered their consciences, forgot what they owed 
to justice and to God, averted their faces, bowed their heads, and with 



8 

trembling hands signed the bond which made slavery forever after, the 
vital principle of the American Government. 

What followed as the result of those compromises ? First, let me ob- 
serve that all of your subsequent perplexities, all the discord that has 
been heard in this country, every serious quarrel that has taken place 
between the several States of this Union, all the apprehensions that you 
have ever felt respecting a dissolution of your Union, have flowed from 
that original and fatal error, — the compromise with slavery in the Con- 
stitution of the United States. My friends, it is a law of God, that any 
immoral principle in any human law, shall prove to be the seminal 
principle of revolution, and shall work out its own destruction. You 
put into your Constitution a compromise that was as certain to shatter 
your Union, as the truth of God was certain to stand while the lies and 
subterfuges of men should be swept away. In your anxiety to establish 
liberty, to transmit it to your posterity, you were guilty of compro- 
mising the rights of half a million of human beings on your own soil ; 
and by incorporating into your law and Constitution a vicious and im- 
moral principle, you ensured its dissolution. It needed only time and 
circumstances to liberate this mighty mischief, and permit it to do its 
appropriate work. Time has been afforded and circumstances have aided, 
and now your Union is destroyed. The lightnings of Heaven have 
blasted it, and you must build again. The great lesson, or ODe great 
lesson this Republic has to learn from the events that are passing before 
her at this hour, is this, that if she would secure future Union of the 
people of this continent, and make this Republic lasting and eternal, it 
must be founded upon principles as immovable as eternal justice, and as 
broad as the family of mankind. (Applause). 

I know the pleas that were set up to justify this departure from eternal 
rectitude in the framing of the Constitution. The compromise entered 
into was said to be a political necessity. A political necessity to ignore 
■ the rights of half a million of immortal beings ! Past events have shown 
the truth of the axiom, that that which is morally wrong can never be 
politically right. Some said, "what harm can there be in leaving out 
of account a Jew hundreds of thousands of dark-skinned, woolly-headed, 
flat-nosed, despised and ignorant Africans and their descendants? Is it 
not better that their rights should be postponed, than that the attempt 
to form a Union should fail?" Others comforted themselves with the 
hope and belief that slavery would die out. It was already unprofitable. 
The slaves were increasing too fast. The masters were thinking of 
emancipation. Let the system alone, and it would die a natural death. 
And 60 the voice of conscience was smothered, and the spirit of slavery" 
triumphed, and a democratic republic was founded, in which slavery was 
tolerated, and protected, and fenced about with Constitutional provisions 
and guarantees. Vain hope ! that a nation whose foundations were laid 
in unrighteousness could permanently endure ! 

No lesson is more clearly or emphatically taught in history than this : 
that a nation — no matter how exalted in arts, or invincible in arms, or 
distinguished for letters, — if founded in oppression and wrong, must, 
sooner or later, unless it repent and reform, perish. Pharaoh refused to 
" let the people go," and where is Egypt ? The princes of Edom refused 
to let the fugitives from Egyptian slavery pass through their land, and 
where is Idumea ? The Jews refused to liberate their bondmen, and, 
themselves made captive, they hung their harps upon the willows in a 
strange land, and mourned for the Zion from which they had been ban- 
ished for their sins. Where are Assyria, Babylon, Greece, Rome, Car- 
thage ? Their broken columns stand childless in the desert. Where 



Thebes and Memphis reared their stupendous monuments, you find only 
the solitary hut or shifting tent of the restless Arab. Where is India? 
The light of civilization that first dawned upon the Ganges, has traveled 
westward until its rays have penetrated the latest built log house upon 
the distant prairies of the American Continent, while the teeming millions 
of Hindostan — groping in worse than Cimmerian darkness — stretch out 
their hands to the more favored people of the West, crying, " Give us 
of your oil, for our lamps are gone out." Where are now the " Isles of 
Greece ? ' ' 

" Eternal Summer gilds them yet, 
But all except tlieir Sun is set." 

Where now is the spot where Plato stood surrounded by his disciples ; 
where Demosthenes entranced his hearers ; where Phidias exhibited his 
master pieces? Behold the magnificent shore where Constantino erected 
his proud capital ! or the ruins of the Alhambra, where the victorious 
Moor rioted in all the pleasures of a refined sensuality! What is the 
lesson which is taught the pilgrim, as he wanders over this wide waste 
of once grand, but now fallen empires — these crumbling ruins of cloud- 
capped towns, and gorgeous palaces, and solemn temples? Is it not this : 
that righteousness alone cxalteth and establisheth a nation, and that sin 
will prove the ruin of the proudest and mightiest of the empires of the 
earth? And, think you, that God would allow even America to violate 
with impunity the laws he has given for the government of the world ? 

To the superficial observer, nothing appeared less probable, a few years 
ago, than the events we are witnessing to-day. Slavery had lengthened 
its cords, and strengthened its stakes, and enlarged its borders; and cot- 
ton was king, not only ruling America, but aspiring to dictate to other 
nations the policy they should pursue. England was told that she was 
at the mercy of the cottonocracy of the South. Now, all is changed. 
The throne of slavery totters to its fall. Uotton is no longer kino;. 
Truth is asserting its legitimate influence over the minds of men ; and, 
above all, the opportunity is afforded of returning to those great princi- 
ples, through a departure from which the present calamities have over- 
taken the nation. Now is the time for men to speak truth one to anoth- 
er. God forbid that I should, at such a crisis, withhold from my 
kinsmen on these shores the counsel which the circumstances of the hour 
seem to demand. That counsel is — make haste to get rid of slavery. 
Extirpate from the land the giant evil which brought your present afflic- 
tions upon you. Hear the voice that comes to you from the fields where 
lie the groaning and the dying ; from the hospitals where languish the 
wounded and the mutilated ; from the distant grave yards, where your 
sons await the resurrection ; from the soil which slavery lias blasted, as 
with a curse ; from the millions who are sighing for deliverance from 
their bonds. Let me gather up these voices, and utter them in your 
ears, in the language of sacred writ. In the midst of treason and con- 
spiracy, of rapine and desoktion, of bereavement and mournirjg, of battle 
and of blood, hear the voice which points out your duty and promises 
your reward. It says, — " loose the bands of wickedness ; undo the 
heavy burdens ; let the oppressed go free ; break every yoke." Here is 
your duty. Now for the promise. " Then shall your light break forth 
as the morning ; your righteousness shall go before you, and the glory of 
the Lord shall bring up the rear. If thou wilt take away from the midst 
of thee the yoke, and bring the poor you have cast out into the house, 
the Lord God himself will guide you continually, and you shall build 
the old waste places, and raise up the foundations of many generations, 
and be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell 



10 

iii ; and henceforth you shall ride upon the high places of the earth, for 
the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." 

At no time could these solemn words be more fitly uttered in the hear- 
ing of American citizens. You are about to exercise the most responsible 
trust ever committed to freemen. You are about to decide by your votes 
the policy this nation shall for the future adopt. Whether it shall pro- 
claim liberty throughout all the land, to all the inhabitants thereof— and 
to secure the peace of the country, the plaudits of mankind, and, better 
still, the approval of Heaven ; or whether you will again compromise 
with evil, and by so doing, make your name a hissing and a by-word ; 
and by consenting to the enslavement of others, make shipwreck, ulti- 
mately, of your own liberties. If you would secure the blessing and 
avert the curse, " break every yoke," and " bring the poor that are cast 
out into the house." Mark ! they must be brought " into the house " 

into the temple of liberty — into the enjoyment of those Constitutional 

privileges which you claim for yourselves. They must not be left in the 
porch, or on the steps, or in the highways or negro quarters. There 
must be no " putting forth of the fingers," no " hiding yourselves from 
your own flesh," but a full and generous recognition of their equal 
rights ; in a word, a practical acknowledgement of their manhood and 
claim to American citizenship. And why should not this be done? what 
is there that is dreadful in doing justice to the black man? What cause 
is there to hate him, save that for centuries he has been injured and op- 
pressed? He is docile, industrious, loyal, brave and forgiving ; why 
should he not be free ? You are not to-day Buffering from an insurrection 
amongst four millions of slaves, but from an insurrection amongst their 
tvrants. The wounds inflicted on liberty in this country, are wounds 
she has received in the house of her friends. Your enemies are the 
southern oligarchs whom you have indulged, petted, spoiled, and nursed 
into arrogance and treason ; and those baser traitors at the North, who, 
under the protection of the Constitution, have abetted the armed rebels 
of Secessia, and have secretly conspired to overthrow the Government 
under which they are still living. (Applause.) 

As I have before observed, when the Union was formed, slavery was 
left a legalized, domestic institution in six of the thirteen States. Let us 
bestow a few moments' attention on the march of the slave power to 
supreme authority. The six States in which it was supposed slavery 
would die out, became fifteen. The slaveholding politicians of the South, 
well knowing that the multiplication of slave States would give them in- 
creased political power, as well as an additional field for the extension of 
their system, began by dividing the States they already possessed. Thus 
Kentucky was Formed out of Virginia ; Tennessee out of North Caro- 
lina ; Mississippi and Alabama out of Georgia, and the consequent right 
acquired, of sending eight additional Senators to Washington. Then the 
slave power obtained the purchase, from France, of the vast territory of 
Louisiana ; and then the purchase of the peninsula of Florida from 
Spain ; and then, in violation of the organic law of 1787, they got posses- 
sion of Missouri ; and then, by treachery, rebellion and war, they 
acquired Texas. Thus the area of the slave Stites was extended from 
two hundred thousand square miles, in 1790, to eight hundred thousand 
in I860 ; and the number of their slaves increased, from half a million in 
the former year, to four millions and a quarter, when the last census was 
taken. The estimated marked value of their human beasts of burden 
increased, from two hundred and twenty millions of dollars, to twenty- 
five hundred millions. The cultivation of one article of slave labor 
produce, — that of cotton — increased from three bales in 1789, to 5,191,- 



11 

■000 bales in 1859 ; most of this was s nt to Europe, and all of it was the 
fruit of the uncompensated and coerced lab irof slaves. Without a figure 
of s.'peech it might ba said to have been i listened by the tears, and 
stained with the blood of the wretched victims who raised it by their toil. 
Thus did slavery live, and grow, and expand. It lived to make Presidents 
and Vice Presidents fur sixty years. It lived to appoint your Ambassa- 
dors and Consuls to all foreign countries. It lived to control the decisions 
•of your > ipreme Court, by piicing a majority of slaveholding Judges on 
the bench. It lived to dictate the domestic and foreigu policy of the 
.nation, and to rule supreme in all the departments of the State — Legis- 
lative, Judicial, Executive and Diplomatic. It lived to exert a domineer- 
ing influence in every Ecclesiastical Assembly, and to lord it over every 
national religious institution. The Bible Society could not give a text 
-of Scripture to the slave. The Tract Society dare not publish a tract 
against slavery. Publishers dare not print any thing offensive to the 
slavehol lers. In fact, the nescroes in the South were not more completely 
subject to the will of the slave power, than were the people of the 
North. Subserviency to the slave power was the only road to prefer- 
ment under the Federal Government ; and hence, the loftiest intellects 
of the North were made to bow and do homage to the Moloch of slavery 
iu the South. Not satisfied with the immense acquisitions of territory I 
have described, the slave p iwer proceeded to throw down every remain- 
ing barrier to the universal extension of slavery. By the law of 1850, 
the free States of the North were made a hunting ground over which 
two-legge 1 wolves might roam, in search of their human pre}", and seize 
it at the rery horns of the altar. Then came the raid into Kansas, by the 
]).;>rder ruffians of Missouri, and all the tragedies that followed. Then 
the repeal of the Missouri Compromise ; and finally the Bred Scoit 
decision, and the promulgation of the doctrine that the Constitution, of 
its own force, carried slavery into all the States and Territories of the 
Union. Four years ago slavery was ubiquitous and omnipotent in this 
country. Talk of a Union ! Talk of the proud boast ot an American — 
41 I am a citizen of the United States.' Why, the most estimable man 
iu New England could not cross the Potomac with the reputation of 
being an anti-slavery man, but at the peril of his life. Mr. Hoar, of 
Massachusetts, though clothed with the authority of an official envoy, 
was noj permitted to remain unmolested for twelve hours on the soil of 
.South Carolina. 

1 must leave you to judge what my feelings were, on witnessing the 
change which the events of the last four years have wrought in the popu- 
lar sentiment of the Northern States. What a contrast between the 
state of things when I left Boston, in 1835, and when I returned to Boston, 
in February last. When I first came to your country, I was branded 
as a fugitive from justice, a foreign incendiary, an emissary from the 
despots of Europe, a fanatic and a firebrand. A price was set upon my 
head ; a gallows was erected at my door ; I was mobbed in every direc- 
tion ; my friend, Mr. Garrison, was made a scapegoat for my offences, 
and dragged by a halter through the streets, and 1 was everywhere hunted 
like a partridge upon the mountains. Thirty years have passed away, 
and I stand once more upon your soil. Oh, what a transformation! 
The officers of the customs treat me with courtesy and consideration. 
Massachusetts, through the lips of her thrice noble Governor, bids me 
welcome to the old Bay State. The citizens of Portland welcome me to 
Maine. 1 have a public reception iu the city of New York, and another 
in Philadelphia ; and finally, I stand in the Hall of Representatives, in 
•the Ga "> ashington, and the Vice President of the United States, 



12 

in the name of America, bids me welcome to your temple of Liberty and' 
invites- me to speak all that it is in my heart to say. ( Applause.) Think 
not that I mention these things to boast of tliem ; or that 1 am vain 
enough to appropriate these honors, as due to me. No, I regard myself 
merely as the representative of those great principles which are now so 
generally accepted in this country ; yet I exult in the change which 
converts me from a hated outlaw into a cherished guest, knowing that 
America, in doing honor to the principles of George Thompson, proclaims 
to the world her purpose to give liberty to the slave. (Applause.) 

I have spoken to you of the onward march of slavery, but there has 
been another great work moving forward in this country opposed to this. 
It was not because America was not politically free, not because her 
people had no sufficient knowledge of the criminality of slavery, that 
they were intolerant of the expression of free opinions, when on a former 
occasion £ visited thes : shores. 

I have shown you from what a small beginning slavery has grown 
into the mighty power with which you are now contending. From a very 
small beginning also began another and a different work. Thirty years 
ago, in a small chamber, friendless and alone, toiled over his types a 
poor, unlearned young man. The place was dark, comfortless and mean, 
yet there the freedom of a race began. Thirty years ago, a young man 
just out of his time as a printer's apprentice, went into a garret in Bos- 
ton, procured a font of type and a press, and issued the first number of 
a newspaper, having previously pledged himself to his Maker, that 
while he could get a crust of bread to eat, he would not abandon the 
enterprise upon which he had commenced. He took as his motto ; " My 
country is the world, and my countrymen all mankind." In the first 
number of his paper he advocated the doctrine of immediate emancipa- 
tion ; and declared that whatever opposition he might meet with, or with 
whatever reproaches he might be assailed, he would be heard, and would 
abide by the principles he had adopted. All the agitation that has 
taken place upon this subject of slavery, all the progress that has been 
made, all the meetings that have been held and are now held to discuss 
the question of Slavery or Freedom, seem to me but the echo of that 
printer's voice when he said : " I will be heard." The man 1 speak of, 
is my endeared and intimate friend, — William Loyd Garrison. 

From the date of which I have spoken to the p resent, the work then 
commenced has gone steadily forward. Small and apparently insignifi- 
cant at first, the men who adopted the principles and views of Mr. Garri- 
son, gained by degrees a wider and more powerful influence. The 
weapons used by them were always spiritual, rather than carnal. They 
gained their influence by a fair use of the living voice, the pen and the 
press. They issued newspapers and sent forth agents into every part o 
this country where they could gain admittance. So they went on for 
ten years ; then a small political party was formed, standing between the 
two great political parties, one of which was led by Clay and Webster, 
and the other by Calhoun. This party represented so many of the voters 
of your country as could not conscientiously cast their votes with either 
of the other parties. At the Presidential Election in 1840, this party 
nominated a third candidate, desiring at once to publish to the world 
their belief in universal liberty. Out of a million and a half votes cast 
at that time, 6even thousand votes were given for the nominee of the 
anti-slavery party. At the next Presidential Election, in 1844, the 
party polled sixty thousand votes ; and in 1848, they polled one hundred 
and seventy thousand. And so they went on until they nominated Mr. 
Hale of New Hampshire, then John C. Fremont, and finally Abraham 
Lincoln . 



13 

In the progress of this political revolution you sec the fruits of the 
efforts of those who wont forth with their lives in their hands to dis- 
seminate anti-slavery principles in this country. Perhaps I know better 
than those around ine the character of the men who began this move- 
ment. I deem it the highest privilege of my life, that L was brought 
thirty years ago into association with the purest, loftiest and best spirits 
this country lias produced during the present century. If I see a har- 
vest now waving before me, I cannot forget that it grew from the seed 
they sowed beside all waters, through good and evil report for so many 
years, during the whole of which time they had to make themselves of 
no reputation, and were regaded as the tilth and off-scouring of all things. 
You realized the fruit of their efforts when the North awoke to a sense of its 
true position, when the annexation of new States into which slavery waB 
extended, revealed to you the puposes of the South. You realized the 
fruit of their labor when in 1850 the vote for the Liberty party was 
greatly increased both in Vermont and other States, and more fully when, 
in 1860, Abraham Lincoln, by a vote of two millions, was placed in the 
position which he now so worthily tills. 

I know that in my own country there has been much misrepresenta- 
tion in regard to the cause of this rupture of the North and South. 
From my intimacy with the politics or this country, not only have I 
marked the origin and growth of its great political parties, but I am 
pretty well acquainted also with its smaller ones. You have had besides 
Whigs, Democrats aud Republicans, wooly-heads, hunkers, old line 
Whigs, lone star men, hard-shell and soft-shell Democrats, and other 
parties, and I know something of them all. You should not expect, 
however, that John Bull will be wise in regard to all these parties, and 
their relations to the welfare of jour country, all at once. It requires 
some familiarity with your affairs to do this, and besides much of hiB pe- 
culiarity is owing to his slowness, — I would say stupidity, were it not 
that such a term would be hardly kind to my countrymen. There was a 
Blowness then about understanding secession and its causes in England. 
It is important also here to remember, that the secessionists had their 
agents in England long before secession was an accomplished fact. They 
looked forward to the triumph of the Republican party here, and pre- 
pared for it. I need not tell you what preparation they made here. 
You know how Floyd prepared to meet the triumph of the Republican 
party. You know also how your arsenals were emptied of arms, and 
how your Navy was sent away from your shores, scattered on various pre- 
tences to the ends of the earth, so that only one ship of twenty guns, 
and another of two were left to guard near the Capital. You remember 
how Gen. Scott had only a thousand men as soldiers, to guard your pub- 
lic buildings, and protect the archives of your State. 

Our friends in England did not understand that the men from the 
South, who went prowling into the sanctums of the editors of our leading 
English journals, who crowded themselves into the society of respectable 
persons, had a special object of their own in view, in Bpeaking against 
you of the North. The English people were led to believe that the 
South had seceded from the North, because of injuries received. When 
this was* broke out, it took sometime to convince them that their impres- 
sions were false with regard to this. The scribes who wrote for the 
most influential of our periodicals, had taken up against you, (well paid 
indeed for doing bo) and misled the people. They, however, felt a deep 
interest in the success of Mr. Lincoln, when he was nominated for the 
Presidency. The people of England rejoiced most Bincerely, when it 
was known that he was elected. Then came the rebellion. Before Mr. 



14 

Lincoln had left Springfield, States were in arms against him, and a con- 
federacy had been formed. When he ascended the presidential chair, 
and war was declared, and seventy-five thousand volunteers were called 
for, the people of England did not manifest that interest in jour behalf, 
which j'ou had a right to expect. 

But allow me to say to you in extenuation of what may appear to 
you a strange course on their part, that there were many events trans- 
piring here, calculated to lead the people of England and of every other 
country to doubt whether you had undertaken this war simply to main- 
tain the Constitution, or from a love for liberty and with the determi- 
nation to emancipate the slave. I need not remind you of the language 
used by Mr. Lincoln himself upon this subject, nor of the statements 
made by Mr. Seward in his correspondence, nor of the resolutions 
framed by Congress, nor of the inducements held out to Maryland and 
Virginia, to return to their allegiance. You are familiar with the events 
to which 1 refer, and the language that was used. You are aware that 
the newspapers also took the ground that the object of the war was rath- 
er to sustain the Constitution than to abolish slavery. They found fault 
with the abolitionists, insisting that they were putting a false issue before 
the people, and were endeavoring to change a war really for the Union 
into a war for the freedom of the slaves. These facts with which you are 
familiar, when they came to be known in England, were taken advantage 
of, by the emissaries of secession, and also by our own leading journal, 
■the London Times. It was asserted and believed, that the main objeot of 
the war on the part of the North, was not the putting away of slavery, 
nor even the diminishing the extent of its domain. But when those glori- 
ous measures were taken up and carried forward by your last Congress, 
which looked toward the emancipation of the slaves, the feeling of England 
•was changed . There has of late been a feeling prevalent in England strong- 
ly in your favor. I do not say that this feeling is universal, because in 
England there are two classes. There is an aristocratic class there that has 
alwavs opposed reforms of every kind, and in all our advancement in that 
•country, they have steadily opposed the progress of free principles. This 
class constitute the very party that for a long time upheld slavery in the 
West India Islands. For thirty-five years they sucessfully opposed the 
•efforts of Granville, Sharp, and Wilberforce, in their attempts to bring 
about the extinction of slavery. They resisted until it became a question 
with the people of England, whether they Avouldsee Christianity die and 
become extinct, or slavery; and only when the people arose in all the 
might which their moral power gave them, was the Parliament of Eng- 
land induced, or rather compelled, to emancipate the slaves of the West 
Indies. 

Let it not then surprise you, that the South finds sympathy among 
such a class, — a class among whom may be found those who love money 
better than they love their God. Let it soften your feeling of disappro- 
bation, and mitigate your displeasure to know, that while the leading 
class, the heads of society in England, are wrong, the -people of Great 
Britain are right. (Applause.) The working men of England, particu- 
larly those of the manufacturing class, are very strongly in your favor. 
That portion of this class that work in the cotton mills, have had their 
<*ood will for you brought to a severe test. They had been dependent 
upon the South for a supply of cotton ; the war cut off this supply.^ 
Hundreds of thousands of these workmen were thereby thrown out of 
•employment, and walked the streets pale and wan, suffering destitution 
.and hunger. They were compelled to accept eleemosynary assistance, 
.and to go to the parish for aid. And why was all this destitution and 



suffering? Why was the machinery of those mills idle? and why did 
those tail chimneys cease to send forth their volumes of Smoke '.' It was 
for lack of cotton. And yet in this country there were four millions of 
hales of cotton, along the banks of the rivers leading down* to the coast, 
and these were kept from the cotton buyers of England by your blockade 
Now have the people of England ever presented a petition to Parliament,, 
asking that the blockade might he broken through ? Have they asked 
for any interference that would retard the progress of liberty here? 
(Applause.) 1 am hero to tell you, that having addressed for three suc- 
cessive years, the people of those districts to which 1 have referred, hav- 
ing spoken to hundreds of thousands of them in the course of that time r 
I never addressed an assembly of such men, when I did not find that they 
were ready to make any sacrifice, t hat the cause of freedom might advance. 
When 1 put it to them, whether they were willing for such a cause to> 
still go cold, and hungry, and to beg, they said emphatically, " 7/ t s, we 
will suffer, or we will labor, but let the negroes go free." 

But what of our other, and higher class as they are termed, what shall 
he said of the part they have enacted in regard to the contest in which 
you are engaged? What if my Lord Brougham in his dotage, a garru- 
lous old man of eighty-seven, what if he sometimes forgetting where be 
is, thinks that s icial science consists in undervaluing or ridiculing Amer- 
ican institutions, and praising those of Great Britain as superior to all 
others? What it my Lord Roebuck or my Lord Gregory, say bitter things 
of America ? What if my Lord Campbell, — a man who should scarcely/ 
1>3 held accountable, so small is his head and 80 narrow his intellect. 
(laughter,) says slighting things of you? I am here to tell you that 
the best minds and loftiest and clearest intellects, and 1 am sure tht 
noblest hear ts of England, are with you. (Applause.) I may mention 
of this number, John Stuart Mill, our profoundest thinker ; also Profess- 
or Kearnes who has written a book upon America, unsurpassed by any 
that has been produced by your own countrymen ; also Goldwin Smith, 
a man of great ability and learning, and Begins Professor at Oxford. Let 
no man persuade you that England, as a -whole, is opposed to your 
prosperity, much less t • your freedom. The people of England are deeply 
penetrated with a sense of what our country owes to yours. Have you 
not bestowed a home and heritage on many of our people ? Have you not 
given to all who have desired it, the title in fee simple of a homestead 
in the far West? Have you not enriched us by the commerce that has- 
passed between our country and yours for so many years? Arc we not 
of the same language, of the same stock, reading a common literature, 
worshipping at a common altar, and hoping for the same Heaven ? No 
Englishman coming to America, feels that he is visiting a Strange land. 
He is leaving his father's home for that of his brother. We feel that 
there should not be a disagreement between you and us. Why, my 
friends, if you have not been represented by a large party in England, 
a party which if not the largest, yet exerts a predominant moral influence: 
there, how has it come to pass, that every measure has failed in Par- 
liament, that has looked toward a recognition of the South as an indepen- 
dent power ? What has put an end to that infamous proceeding that 
was for some time carried forward by the ship builders, in sending forth 
those corsairs of the sea, that have ravaged your commerce? What has, 
of late, kept these diabolical rams at home? What has spiked tin- 
political guns of England? How is it that not a successful political 
meeting has been hold there to favor the South, while your President 
has had SO many addresses from the people of England, expressing sym- 
pathy for your cause, to reply to? What docs this prove but that there 



16 

•'are two nations in England, one for the right of the people everywhere, 
•and for freedom, and the other a nation that claims despotic power, and 
has striven and is striving to maintain it ? 

Forty years ago, I, as a dissenter from the established Church of 
England, was not eligible to any municipal office, could not be admitted 
to the bar, could not enter one of the universities, could not take a com- 
mand in the army. No man was eligible to any of these offices, unless 
he was a member of the established Church and could produce a certificate 
from the clerk of his parish, to the elfect that he was a regular cummuni- 
■cant. The dissenters were at that time poor for the most part ; they 
had no representation in Parliament. In time, however, they gained in 
■strength and numbers, and at length compelled the ruling classes to grant 
■them that equality of civil privileges wliich they now enjoy. So too, 
previous to lrfuU, eight millions of irishmen were oppressed by the laws, 
and may be said to have been in chains— subject' to an overbearing and 
haughty aristocracy. At length, however, by agitation, and by resolute 
and combined assertion of their rights, they wrung the privileges which 
belonged to them from their oppressors. So too long ago, when the 
people of England demanded a franchise, a representation in the Commons 
Jlouse of Parliament, they had to go to a House composed of the very 
men against whom they were contending, men who had returned theni- 
■selves to Parliament, and were called borough mongers. At length, 
however, by long continued agitation bnd uiscussiou, they gained a 
-recognition of their rights from a Parliament composed of these very 
borough mongers. Then again there was the W est India interest, that 
■endeavored to control the Parliament, contrary to the will of the people. 
This interest undertook to have a Parliament of its own that would sus- 
tain the slave system. But here again the people of Great Britain 
triumphed, after a long course of peaceful agitation. Perhaps, however, 
the greatest triumph of this kind for the people, was the repeal of the 
corn laws. 1 know something about this, for 1 was for five years engaged 
in helping to bring it about, working with such men as Kichard Cobden 
and John Bright. (Applause). While other movements were on foot 
to modify these laws, we aimed at nothing less than their utter extinc- 
tion. It was for the interest of the lords of the soil to continue these 
laws. But these men were in power and controlled the Parliament. To 
these very men we had to make our application for repeal. By a long 
course of peaceful agitation, however, as you well know, success was 
gained at last, and the abolition of the corn laws was wrung from a 
Parliament composed of those who had opposed this very meaure ; and 
the bounteous harvests of your Western prairies were made accessible to 
the people of Great Britain. Those who in England favored the abolition 
of the bread laws, now favor your course, and those who were opposed to 
that measure, are now opposed to you. (Applame.) 

Need I say, my friends, in my own behalf, that in this great struggle 
I am with you ? You can scarcely desire that the issue of this great 
contest shall be the restoration of your Union, and the purification of 
your country from what has hitherto been its blemish and reproach, 
more than 1 do. I am especially anxious, feverishly anxious, with regard 
to the issue of the struggle at this moment in progress, with regard to 
what is now g >ing forward at the South. I believe you may trust your 
gallant army there. (Applausi.) I do not believe that the people of 
the North can do better than to act upon the advice tendered them by the 
distinguished gentlemen who command the corps of that army. 

Nothing is more evident, even to a casual observer of what is goin g 
forward in this country at the present time, than that the future welfare 



17 

of this country depends upon the triumph at the North of that party 
which stands opposed to the party 'which recently issued its manifesto 
from Chicago. Were I an American citizen, I have no doubt as to the 
course I should pursue, in order to secure liberty and free institutions 
and a Republican form of Government for my country. In saying what I 
now say, I do not intend to find fault with my own country. I was born 
an Englishman and am proud to be an Englishman. I have lived fur thir- 
ty-five years under the rule of one of the must excellent and virtuous of 
ladies. (Applause.) I have enjoyed nearly as much liberty there as you 
enjoy in this country, and at one period of my life I enjoyed more liberty 
there than I could hope for here. But if I was an American citizen 
(and I should have no objection to being one and peradventure I may die 
one) 1 should use all my influence, and all the talent I could command, 
and every means in my power, to secure the re-election to the Presidential 
Chair of Abraham Lincoln. (Long continued applause.) 

My friends, I think I have already said that nothing has occurred in 
your country which has delighted your friends in England more than the 
election of Abraham Lincoln four years ago. We thought it a grand 
spectacle, that when you had to look among thirty millions of people to 
find a man to fill the office of Chief Magistrate, you passed over the lead- 
ers of great political parties, you did not seek for a man of oratorical 
power, you took up with a plain man, one who had been a i.erds-boy, a 
bargeman, a rail-splitter. (Applause.) You took up this man, rough- 
hewed, and you lifted him above the heads of his fellows and made him 
President of the United States, by the style and title. — a prouder one does 
not exist — of honest Abraham Lincoln. (Applause.) According to the 
spirit and letter of the Constitution you elected him. At previous Presi- 
dential elections you had been defeated, but you had never rebelled or 
threatened to rebel, but had submitted to the national will. 

At length you gained a victory for free principles, and elected Abra- 
ham Lincoln President of the United States. He never has been Presi- 
dent of the whole United States ; and now let me urge every loyal 
American to insist upon keeping him in that presidential chair until he 
is President of the United States. (Applause.) Let the South learn 
the majesty of the law they have insulted and defied in his person, and 
know that it shall be vindicated. I believe that Abraham Lincoln 
deserves a re-election. He has piloted you through darkness and danger 
in the hour of peril. Now that he has borne the burden and heat of the 
day, and has endured the hardships of adversity, he should hold the 
place of honor in the hour of your triumph. If you are about to be 
entirely victorious, as I believe you are, surely you should continue him 
in the position that he has filled so worthily. I trust that he may live to 
finish the [work he has so well begun. Look a moment at what has 
been accomplished. See the National Capital purged from slavery. 
When Mr. Morrill goes to take his seat in Congress, he will see no slave 
market now in the District of Columbia. Look at the Northwest : the 
dominion of slavery is broken there, and those states are wholly or pro- 
spectively free. Everywhere the condition of your colored popula- 
tion is improved and improving. The freedmen are gaining knowledge, 
and engaging in the various pursuits and avocations of their white breth- 
ren. The representatives of Hayti and Liberia are received at Washing- 
ton, and placed upon an equality with the ambassadors of other nations. 
Missouri has adopted measures for emancipation, and is prospectively 
free, and Kentucky, where the venerable Dr. Breckenridge has spoken so 
clearly for free principles, will, I believe, soon be free also. 

Again I express the hope that Mr. Lincoln may live to finish the work 



18 

he has hegun. And when he shall cease to labor and to live, and your 
children and your children's children shall stand around his grave, may 
they say in the words of our poet. 

" How sleep the "nod, who sink to rest, 
By all their country's wishes hlest ! 
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, 
Returns to deck their hatlnwed mould, 
She there shall dress a sweeter sod, 
Than fancy's feet have ever trod. 
Bv fairy hand* their knell is rung, 
By forms unseen theirdirge is sung, 
There honor conies, a pilgrim grey, 
To hless the turf that wraps their clay, 
And Freedom shall awliilo repair. 
To dwell a weeping hermit there. : ' 

Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives of Vermont,. 
Citizens of Montpelier, Ladies and Gentlemen ; — In leaving this platform, 
allow me to assure you that so lung as this struggle shall lust, every pulse 
of one Englishman's heart shall beat true to the cause' in "which your 
country is engaged. 

" O that I may live to see 
Your hills, your dales and valleys free ! 
That blessing dear, is all I crave 
Between my labors and my grave. " 

(Applause.) 



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